Executive Summary Learning, Teaching & Innovative Technology Center 2009‐2010
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CONTENTS OVERVIEW WORKSHOPS, WEBINARS, SPECIAL EVENTS ELEARNING SERIES FIRST TUESDAYS TEACHING EXCELLENCE WORKSHOPS & SHOWCASES WEBINARS SHAREFAIR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITIES PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT CONFERENCES SPECIAL INITIATIVES ADVISORY BOARD CENTER OPERATIONS DIRECTORS’ ACTIVITIES
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Overview – Year of Transition and Challenge For a second year, the Learning, Teaching & Technology Center faced unexpected operational challenges due to university restructuring, primary among them the sudden loss of the Center’s Peck Hall offices. In October 2009, the center was asked to relinquish its space to make room for the for the new Confucius Institute at MTSU. Adminstrative operations were moved to the Telecomm Building, sharing quarters with the Faculty Instructional Technology Center on the second floor. All but the most essential equipment and resources were put in storage. Despite these difficulties, the Center managed to carry on with its mission to— • • •
provide a range of professional development opportunities for faculty improve teaching and support professional development persist with initiatives that would enhance the MTSU academic community.
Reasons for Decreased Registration • Loss of Peck Hall Location • Academic Restructuring • Increased Demands on Faculty • Sturm und Drang
Professional development opportunities included providing 25 workshops in 2009-10 and launching a new workshop eLearning series to support faculty transitioning to online environments. New initiatives included the formation of MTSU faculty learning communities, an expanded mentoring program (renamed The Academy for Teaching Excellence), and a new graduate teaching assistant intiative. In addition, the center continued to communicate with its members and the larger academic community, sharing information about new research and resources in teaching and learning and about unique opportunities available for shaping an academic career. But with the university facing complex decisions for the coming years, faculty priorities shifted and the ability to commit to the center’s repertoire of teaching and learning events waned tellingly. Registration for workshops fell to nearly half of what the Center counted last year (300). Losing the centrally located Peck Hall, the Center had to relocate workshops & activities to multiple sites across campus which took us out of the routine of many regulars. For example, in 2008-09, faculty from the English, foreign languages, human sciences, and speech and theatre departments were among the most frequent workshop participants; this year, they were barely present.
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300 250 200 2009
150
2010
100 50 0 Attendance
Despite decreased registrations, the Center noted rising ratings and improved feedback for all events. Compared with 2007 when most workshops received average ratings of “3” (on a scale of 1-5), workshops held in 2009-10 academic year easily drew 5 and 4 ratings from faculty participants, along with highly complimentary feedback. The coming academic year looks brighter, although financial constraints affecting the university will likely continue to impact the center. Regardless of conditions, however, the center looks forward to moving into its new offices in Walker Library and having its presence there help build the library into a teaching and learning commons. With a reliable space from which to operate, hold events, meet with faculty, provide resources, the center should be able to refocus its efforts to support teaching and learning excellence at MTSU. Change in Participation in Key LT&ITC Events -- 2009 v 2010 Series** Participants # of 2009 Participants # of 2010 Change 2009 Workshops 2010 Workshops First Tuesdays
91
6
37
6
‐54
Teaching Excellence
64
4
11
2
‐53
n/a
n/a
78
6
n/a
Educause Webinars
49
4
22
7
‐27
eLearning***
Total
204
16
70
16
‐134
***: Table excludes participants from Showcases, ShareFair, & D2L Webinars from last 2 years so total does not represent all activity ***eLearning #s shown but not counted
.
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Workshops, Webinars, Special Events eLearning Series
For 2009-10, the center developed a new series on eLearning that focused on the practical issues involved in online teaching and learning. More faculty signed up for workshops in this series (and in a down year) than for any other LT&TC workshop series, proof that faculty are aware of the importance of teaching with technology and want to learn how to use it. eLearning Series – Fall Semester Workshop Presenter Effective Powerpoint Presentations with New Media Tools Ping Zheng Teaching Hybrid Courses Draude/Ward Collaborative Instructional Tools Kerr/Macy Total # / Rating
# Attending 17 15 8 40
Rating 4.2 5 5 4.7
The eLearning Series was designed as a forum for discussing technology-supported pedagogies that can be used in both traditional and alternative delivery courses. Its immediate popularity fits in with recent evidence on the rising use of technology in teaching: By 2006, 3.5 million students were participating in on‐line learning at institutions of higher education in the United States.[7] According to the Sloan Foundation reports,[8][9] there has been an increase of around 12‐14 per cent per year on average in enrollments for fully online learning over the five years 2004‐2009 in the US post‐secondary system, compared with an average of approximately 2 per cent increase per year in enrollments overall. Allen and Seamen (2009)[8] claim that almost a quarter of all students in post‐secondary education were taking fully online courses in 2008, and a report by Ambient Insight Research[10] suggests that in 2009, 44 per cent of post‐secondary students in the USA were taking some or all of their courses online, and projected that this figure would rise to 81 per cent by 2014. Thus it can be seen that e‐learning is moving rapidly from the margins to being a predominant form of post‐secondary education, at least in the USA. National Center for Education Statistics
eLearning Series -- Spring Semester Workshop Presenter Mobile Learning Jones Social Networking Tools for Teaching & Learning Kerr Beginner’s Guide to Online Teaching Draude & eLearning FLC Total # / Rating
# Attending 6 17 15
Rating 5 5 4.2
38
4.7
Although all the workshops in the eLearning series were highly rated, some feedback suggests that faculty would like these workshops to be more hands-on than discussion based. For example:
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On Effective Powerpoint Presentations with New Media Tools -- “Difficult to follow. I don’t think I can replicate some things from the presentation (e.g. sizing images).” On Collaborative Instructional Tools – “Very Interesting, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to incorporate this into my teaching.” On Hybrid Course Design, I would like to have specific examples; I was hoping for more specifics rather than general info. On A Beginner’s Guide to Online Teaching – “Wanted more ‘How to’ to see what to expect; advertisement for your workshop suggested that it would be a basic ‘how to’ workshop; Thought more hands on demonstration would be available.” On Mobile Learning – “Needed a little more detail on getting started.” On Social Networking Tools (this eLearning workshop received the most praise from participants on its clarity and utility) – “I thoroughly enjoyed the presentation and plan to incorporate twitter and delicious into my classes; I would like to form a research team via twitter; Make the presentation more interactive. Wonderful handout!”
These comments indicate a couple of things: participants appreciate workshops that give them a practical understanding of the topic and the confidence to begin using the ideas. Most desired, especially with eLearning topics, are workshops that incorporate hands-on opportunities. In addition, some comments indicate that faculty expected something different from what was offered. Therefore, it’s most important that, in the future, workshop descriptions for eLearning be reviewed for accuracy in conveying coverage, approach, level and outcomes before they are shared with faculty. (see Appendix: workshop recommendations)
First Tuesdays
The First Tuesday Series has been most successful when it presents a succession of themed workshops that offer practical help and resources on newer classroom pedagogies such as learning styles, technology in the classroom, active learning, information literacy, and the First Tuesday Series -- Fall 2009 Workshop Presenter Adventures in Pedagogy Bobbitt/Phillips Service Learning Jim Williams Strategies for Teaching in the Brain-Compatible Classroom Nancy Boone Total # / Rating
# Attending 2 cancelled 4 6
Rating n/a n/a 5 5.0
like. One of the most successful of this series over the This is one of the best workshops past couple of years was the First Tuesday Series on I’ve been to, I have ideas for Information Literacy, conceived and created by library activities I can put into use straight staff and presented in an interactive style that away. On the Brain Compatible encouraged faculty participation. But with growing Classroom. pressures on faculty amidst the university’s “repositioning for the future,” it has become challenging to find faculty with time to commit to building and leading a workshop (see workshop recommendations). As a result during the fall 2009 , there was not a consistent theme and attendance fell. For example, Nancy Boone’s, “Strategies for Teaching in the Brain-Compatible Classroom” an excellent workshop by all accounts, suffered from factors that had nothing to do with her presentation.
7 The Spring 2010 First Tuesday series was created more along the lines of the original format for this program and so had much more success. The First Tuesday Series on Experiential Learning was thoughtfully created and managed by a faculty leader (Jill Austin) who approached the center for approval and support in offering it. She and the faculty members she recruited for the series clearly put a lot of time into organizing the coverage and planning individual parts for the presentations. Provided with a clear series overview, the center was able to promote the workshops enthusiastically and unambiguously in terms of what faculty would be learning and what they would enjoy as benefits from participating. The more First Tuesdays that can be developed on the Spring 2010 model, the greater chance of success for them. First Tuesday Series on EXL -- Spring 2010 Workshop Presenter Developing Effective Community-Based & Service Learning Projects EXL Faculty Developing & Marketing Your Major as EXL Program of Study EXL Faculty Developing Your Course for EXL EXL Faculty Total # / Rating
# Attending 12 videocast 19 31
Rating 5 5 5.0
The final workshop, “Developing and Marketing Your Course for EXL,” attracted few faculty participants. It’s difficult to explain why with any certainty. The workshop was promoted similarly to the others, so lack of notice was not a factor. Also, the workshop flowed logically from the preceding ones. Other factors could be that – 1. April is a busy time for faculty, making workshops a low priority (two other workshops scheduled for April had similar problems, except for the eLearning workshop) 2. Topics weren’t interesting enough to faculty 3. Perhaps the EXL series didn’t require 3 workshops to make its point (seeAppendix: workshop recommendations)
Teaching Excellence Workshops & Showcases
Comments on Effective Service Learning Projects “Wide range of presenters. Thank you. Good session! Well done, structured, distribution of each presenter. This is wonderful; I wish I could attend more. “
For the 2009-10 academic year, the Center was able to put together only two Teaching Excellence workshops instead of the customary 4 for the year (one April workshop on graduate assistant mentoring that was to be led by Jackie Eller was cancelled due to low registration and rescheduled for the fall 2010). Scheduling problems, exacerbated by changes in the academic environment, made it very difficult to recruit speakers this year.
8 The Teaching Excellence Series, developed from MTSU’s teacher assessment survey, is designed to help faculty strengthen classroom skills as defined by the teacher assessment instrument that generates student ratings. The tie to the assessment instrument always made this series popular with faculty, but in fall 2009, with new pressures on the Center and on faculty, this series was diverted to other uses, this year serving as a platform for the Center’s new initiatives. It is hoped that once the Center has re-stabilized it should return to the original concept for the series and work on organizing events (either on campus or from facilitated sources) that strengthen skills for teaching and learning. The fall and spring Teaching Excellence Showcases featured highly regarded, well-known scholars. Susan Griffin, spoke on how to integrate themes of social responsibility into the curriculum. Her book Teaching Democracy served as a source text for the MTSU Faculty Learning Community on Civic Engagement. The Griffin showcase was jointly sponsored with the American Democracy project. For the spring showcase, the Center partnered with the various STEM groups on campus to bring Matthew Fisher, chair of the chemistry department at St Vincent College and a SENCER fellow, to show faculty how to implement projects in the scholarship of teaching and learning. Both showcases were excellent, although, again, attendance was off for these events this year.
Teaching Excellence: Workshops & Showcase 2009-10 Workshops Academy for Teaching Excellence (Nov ’09) MTSU Civic Engagement FLC (April ’10) Showcases Teaching Democracy (Sept ’09) Inquiring into our Students’ Learning (Mar ’10) Attendance Totals
Webinars
Presenter Graeff, Phillips, Bobbitt FLC members
# Attending 11 videocast
Rating x x
Susan Griffin Matt Fisher
6 8 23
x 5
The center offered fewer webinars because the D2L company did not offer faculty support webinars on using its course management system this year. But the center did host Educause webinars to support faculty interested in teaching with technology. With the loss of a stable Center location, the webinars were relocated to either the library (Walker Room 475) or the Faculty Senate Chambers.
9 Educause Webinars 2009-10 Teaching without Walls: Beyond Lecture Clickers & Peer Instruction Using Electronic Portfolios to Support Teaching Opencast Matterhorn Project Born Digital Team Based Learning Learning Environments Totals
Month September October November February February March April
# Attending 4 2 4 1 6 3 2 23
08-09
50 est.*
*statistics were not collected for webinars prior to this year.
Again, in a fragile growth phase and with the university in the midst of change the Center lost many of its “regulars,” faculty who knew where we were located and who were familiar with the routine. With good promotion and a return to stability, these numbers should definitely bounce back in the future.
ShareFair The Center co-hosted ShareFair with the Faculty Instructional Technology Center and the TLTR. A showcase of outstanding pedagogical classroom strategies developed by MTSU faculty, ShareFair was both well-staffed and well-attended, featuring 9 presenters (representing 5 departments) and around 40 participants including staff and management from ITD. The 2010 Award for Innovative Excellence in Teaching, Learning and Technology, sponsored this year by the College of Liberal Arts, went to Barbara Young, professor in the department of educational leadership. Amy Hennington, CIS, was an award finalist. This year, the center’s graduate student, Andrea Garrison, interviewed faculty exhibitors for short podcasts uploaded to the Center’s web and I-TunesU sites.
Professional Development Activities An important part of the Center’s mission involves professional development -- providing faculty members with opportunities and resources for improving their academic skills. The Center assists faculty with its development in a number of ways – by sponsoring travel to
10 professional development conferences, by creating professional development initiatives that can enhance the academic community on campus, and by forming partnerships with other MTSU academic entities to furnish opportunities that can only be developed collaboratively, and by keeping faculty current on activities, resources, research, and events that fit in with the needs of MTSU’s academic community.
Professional Development Conferences
The Center usually sponsors the travel of 4-6 faculty members to professional development conferences each year. In the past these conferences have been: • • •
Professional and Organizational Development (POD)Conference (Oct) Teaching Professor Conference (June) Southern Regional Faculty and Instructional Development Consortium (March)
Faculty who attend these conferences are selected on the basis of their involvement or interest in professional development issues. In return, these faculty members agree to share what they’ve learned by leading a workshop for the center or serving as a resource for faculty at large. Because of budgeting priorities, the Center sponsored travel to only one conference (POD) this year. Tom Brinthaupt (Psychology), facilitator of one of the Center’s new faculty learning communities, attended the conference. His impressions are included in the spring 2010 issue of SourceLink.
Special Initiatives
The Center launched three professional development initiatives that, in total, involved between 20-30 faculty members from a diverse range of disciplines. These initiatives produced pilot programs, all made possible by the co-directors seeking out new partnerships with other academic departments and envisioning initiatives that attract collaboration. The three initiatives are: •
The Academy for Teaching Excellence, the offspring of the Center’s mentoring program, was expanded to a full year to include a semester-long SOTL (Scholarship of Teaching & Learning) research project that mentees produce to conclude their yearlong effort to raise the level of teaching and learning. Proposed by mentoring director Tim Graeff, the Academy has now run a full cycle as a pilot and now enters its second year as an established program. Professors Michelle Bobbitt (Mgmt) and Mary Phillips (Accounting) completed the pilot program in December 2009. Both of them, along with Tim Graeff, promoted the Academy by sharing experiences in two LT&ITC workshops in 2009 and by exhibiting in ShareFair. (LT&ITC and Academic Affairs, sponsors)
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•
Faculty Learning Communities (FLCs) bring together faculty from various disciplines who share a common interest in researching and testing scholarly and pedagogical topics that could benefit the larger academic community. FLCs were introduced to MTSU in 2007, when the Center hosted a Teaching Excellence Showcase led by Milton Cox, a national expert. The Center investigated FLCs for a couple of years before undertaking them as initiatives. For example, in exploring their workability at MTSU, the Center sponsored two faculty members to attend an FLC conference and to build their expertise. Ron Kates, one of those two faculty members, became co-facilitator of the first MTSU FLC on Civic Engagement, whose membership includes Tony Johnston (Agribusiness & Agriscience), Michelle Boyer Pennington (Psychology), Hilary Stallings (Liberal Arts), Mary Evins (History), Kim Sadler(Biology), Maria Edlin (Economics), Jason Reineke(Journalism), and Kaylene Gebert (Speech & Theatre). The second FLC, the MTSU FLC on eLearning Pedagogy, was launched in December 2009 with Tom Brinthaupt (Psychology) as facilitator and LaWanna Fisher (Academic Enrichment), Justin Gardner (Agribus & Agriscience), Deana Raffo (Speech & Theatre), Jeremy Rich (History), and Jennifer Woodard (Electronic Media) as members. These communities ultimately produce on-campus experts on the FLC topic who can be counted on to share their expertise in a range of forums. (LT&ITC, CEDL, Academic Affairs—sponsors) The Graduate Teaching Assistant Initiative is just underway. Its focus is on the mentoring of graduate teaching assistants and on introducing them to the kind of professional development that will prepare them for a teaching career. The Center has been working with the Graduate Studies staff to hone this program and to make it relevant to MTSU graduate teaching assistants. Jackie Eller will lead a workshop on mentoring graduate teaching assistants in the fall 2010.
Advisory Board
The Center held its 5th annual meeting with the LT&ITC advisory board in November 2009. The meeting was held in the Faculty Senate Chambers and afterward minutes were distributed to all board members as a record of of discussions and proposed actions, summarized below. Goals for the center proposed at the meeting include: • • • •
The Center should conduct a needs assessment survey sent to all faculty (about 900) to ask how the Center can support their teaching and professional development needs. Interact more with the chairs to engage them on the topic of professional development. Expand the Center by creating contacts and partnerships off campus. Use technology to create or carry events that would be too costly to hold on site.
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Center Operations After leaving the Peck Hall location, the Center worked extra hard to maintain its level of interaction with faculty so that all could see that the Center still had resources and opportunities to offer despite temporary changes. Some of these efforts included: •
•
•
•
•
Learning-L: The learning-l listserv membership continues to grow as more and more faculty hear about workshops, opportunities, and resources offered by the Center. Containing around 200+ faculty, the listserv added around 400 graduate students during the spring semester to encourage teaching assistants to start attending professional development workshops. The listserv emailed at least 1 calendar/communiqué each month describing events, providing teaching tips for both traditional and eLearning environments, and sharing information on resources, tools, and opportunities for academics. LT&ITC Web Site: Thanks to the Center’s graduate assistant, Andrea Garrison, the web site looks beautiful and functions clearly. Faculty can visit the site for information on workshops, to download materials, to listen to podcasts. This web site was completely revamped over the past couple of years and now functions as an effective representation of the Center. SourceLink: For the first time, SourceLink was published in full color. The Center has emailed its newsletter to faculty as a pdf for two years now, printing copies as needed for distribution at faculty events. LT&ITC Bookmarks: The bookmarks on teaching, learning, and professional development are a comprehensive collection of resources and research in higher education. Jackie Eller used the mentoring bookmarks to help create her presentation on mentoring graduate teaching assistants. LT&ITC Logo: Part of the branding process for LT&ITC involved re-designing the logo, conceptualizing a distinctive image that could be used in a variety of formats and be modern, up-to-date and relevant. Publication graphics presented a number of options from which one was chosen by all.
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Directors’ Activities Both Faye Johnson and Barbara Draude dedicated many hours to maintaining the Center’s faculty services and resources as well as to developing useful programming. Both codirectors set up the Center’s initiatives – the Academy for Teaching Excellence and the faculty learning communities. Faye Johnson helped secure the funding for the Academy and supported its director Tim Graeff through the approval process. As a result of her efforts, the Academy successfully mentored two faculty members through the process, including the final SoTL phase in which the mentees produce a research-based, publishable work. Now the Academy is mentoring another two faculty members. Barbara Draude provided support and effective direction to the MTSU Faculty Learning Community on eLearning Pedagogy, another new initiative of the Center. Its funding was also a product of a partnership, this one with CEDL, and the success of this initiative has established it as a permanent part of the Center’s faculty development structure. The Center continues to flourish because of the ability of its codirectors to reach out to academic entities that share common interests. In addition to her campus activities, co-director Barbara Draude participated in off campus events that positively impacted the Center: • •
In January 2010, Ms. Draude attended the annual Educause Learning Initiative annual meeting, co-presenting a pre-conference workshop entitled “Play-Based Learning: Physical, Virtual and Educational.” (Austin, TX) In June 2010, she joined the faculty of the Educause Institute 2010 Learning Technology Leadership Program. (Portland, OR)